2. 6 . 9 . 17 . 28 .

APRIL . 2009>

April 2
Luke continues to amaze us with his words. He repeated after me the other day when I said "Go, Go, Go" and "Eat, Eat, Eat". He thought this was quite funny. He pointed to the noses of the people on the tv and then to his and said "Nose"... and then again with "Ears"... and then again with "Dog" while signing dog... and he's always very thrilled with himself. He says so many spontaneous words it's too hard to keep up, and he continues to repeat any word we ask him to say. Most sound funny still, like a 2-year-old would say it, but some sound quite clear and it's fun. He'll even try multiple syllables, and is starting to use a lot of two-words "More Chicken", etc. He has quite the sense of humour and has a mischievous smile almost all the time. He signs please spontaneously a lot. He is very sensitive to Joel... especially if Joel's crying. The other day Joel finished his hot dog and he wanted more but there were no more so he cried and cried. Luke was so upset and finally tossed a small piece of his hot dog at me to give to Joel. He is trying to say "one, two, three, etc." and is comprehending it all, which is the best part. He totally knows what's going on. The kids at preschool are totally tickled as the ask him "Luke, say yellow" and he says "yellow", "Luke, say blue", etc. It's very exciting for them all. There was a show-and-tell with K. bringing his hockey team photo and before anyone could say anything Luke yelled "Hockey" a few times. Today we went to the doctor to requisition bloodwork for his cholesterol levels and Luke performed nicely by saying "doctor" and a few other words. Of course, this was after he shouted "die, die" throughout the clinic — hahahaha ("light, light"). Daddy took him grocery shopping and for the first time he was very interested in all the food, especially saying the words "milk", "butter" "green apple" etc. Pretty cool. Our house is a little noisier now. The other thing I really noticed is Luke is more likely to play or read by himself. He was often quite clingy to me, but now he'll sit (when asked to) and read through a book on his own.

Another OT came to visit on Wednesday and she made us realize how sensitive Luke is about his palms/hands. He does not like to push or have pressure there. So we will continue giving him hand massages or use different methods of getting him to be more aggressive with his fingers/hands. He enjoys deep pressure right now (gently press a cushion on him), but doesn't like light pressure (light touching / playing with the parachute). He is not 100% aware / comfortable with his body which you can tell, so we will incorporate some more physical play into his programs.

We spent the weekend at our getaway and he enjoyed the snowy outdoors and said the animals names "Bella, Buffy" (donkey and goat)... he is trying to play with the other children, but still has a ways to go. The team will also continue to work on Luke's play skills and imagination, although he is now pretending to have a "tea party" or pretending to cook with the play-dishes. We've begun "dress-up" which he did a little (put a dog's head/mask on and crawled on all fours). There are a few other programs to focus on, like "sorting" into categories (ie putting all different kinds of food into the "food" category, versus putting all cars, trains, boats, etc. into the "vehicles" category). These are just some things that he struggles with. That and because of his weak hand pressure we need to work more on his drawing / colouring, although the switch from crayons to markers has made a big difference. We've also just begun teaching Luke about "patterning". The ABA program is SO amazing, and our team is phenomenal!!!

April 6
Luke hasn't been wetting the bed at night as often, but he did this morning and when daddy went in to bring him to the toilet he wouldn't move. He said "pee". Daddy said, I know, let's go to the toilet so you can pee. Luke then said "pee, bed". He had wet the bed. His vocalizing is so exciting because all the things the BIs have taught him in the last year he has made the connections... it's actually quite amazing, because although we knew he understood what we were saying... we would never be certain that he would make verbal sense of it all.

On Friday early morning Luke and daddy went to the hospital lab to get the cholesterol blood work done and Luke was so good. He did not squirm much while they tried his left arm and then succeeded with his right arm and drew 5 vials of blood. He was a bit lethargic all day, understandably. He has been recognizing letters and numbers and saying them, like he pointed to an "R" on a sign at the doctor's the other day and said "R", and in preschool he saw a sign that had a "2" on it and he said "Two".

The preschool assistant also wrote that Luke lifted a wooden stool almost to chest level as he carried at across the room. When he first started this activity on November 20, he barely lifted the stool to knee level as he struggled to carry the weight. Luke also liked his buddy's "pom-pom" on his toque, so he took his off and checked if he had one (and he did)... he apparently enjoyed saying "pom-pom" many, many times. Very cute to hear. Ms. M. also held back when the kid's where supposed to line up in pairs and head back to the classroom (after outside time). She wanted to see what Luke would do, if he would find a partner or not. She told us that he turned around, held out his hand and said "M"... he's never acknowledged her before like this and she was very touched by this special recognition.

He's pretty happy to be on the trampoline again and is running around and doing knee drops. He's seems pretty pleased with his communication and even tries to say all the vitamins... he actually is our helper now as we ask for specific vitamins and he gives them to us (from a collection of about 12). It's cool to watch him search and always select the right one. He honestly likes them and often reminds us when it's time for vitamins (he's got an amazing inner clock, or sense of schedule). After vitamins at night he says "brush teeth", and goes down to bed without a fuss. He is also saying "help" and "please" more often; and it's cute to hear him say "pee" as he still touches his nose to let us know when he has to go. He'll smile and say "No" a lot when you ask him to say something. We tried to get him to say Auntie S. this weekend and it came out like "Auntie No-No" which was quite funny (partly because she tried to get him to say a bad word and I had to yell Auntie NO-NO!!! hahahaha). I must admit he has not had the spacey look for a while which is quite a relief.

April 9
I'm sitting here typing and Luke's opening and closing the office door saying "Bye-bye, See ya". It's so hilarious and amazing at the same time. I can't believe he's talking. Way too fun.

I just wanted to put a note about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy that I read about the other day. People keep asking what it does exactly. Here's a summary (credit: International Hyperbarics Association, Inc.):
"How does it work? A patient just sits in the chamber and relaxes, naps or even watches a movie or video. HBOT diffuses oxygen throughout the body, even into damaged tissues. Pressurized oxygen has tremendous healing capabilities. Oxygen expands and enlarges restricted capillaries and blood vessels in the body, even to the speech and language centers of the brain. Some non-verbal patients begin speaking and have improved articulation. HBOT heals the brain by activating idling neurons, thus enabling cognitive function. Outcomes include improved attention, concentration and the ability to follow directions, along with a reduction in hyperactivity. HBOT also improves muscle tone because oxygen increases muscle mass. It also delivers oxygen deep into the tissues of the body where it attacks and kills yeast overgrowth, fungus, mold, and toxic pathogens — all with an intense and short-lived die off, and without a negative effect on the liver. It is being used for allergies, autism, auto-immune disorders, brain injury, candidiasis, drowning, hypoglycemia, heavy metal poisoning, infections, multiple sclerosis, stroke and more."

Here's the kicker: charities in BC don't cover it and you cannot import the chamber (whether renting or buying) into Canada. I don't get it. We're working with oxyhealth.com trying to figure out a way around this, and they are in turn working with the Canadian government to make it possible to cross the border. We will hopefully be getting together with a group of interested parents / people in town; I'll let everyone know when and where this meeting is... so we can discuss options. The one we're interested in (Vitaeris 320) is @$18,000 US + taxes + shipping + customs . Ayiyiyiyi. I'll keep you posted.

April 17
Yesterday we had our team meeting and Luke is doing very well. He still struggles with sorting, but they've devised a new plan for that, so we shall see. Apparently he's so excited and focused on "naming" everything (saying the word for every picture he's shown) that he loses focus on what he's supposed to do with the pictures. Anyways, other than that he's excelled at a lot of the programs and K & S are coming in a couple weeks to do a case review and re-evaluate Luke's program. K had come by on Wednesday and did a lot of "maintenance" with Luke (re-testing on stuff he's mastered like "matching" and "colours", etc. from the past year's learning). She was impressed with his capabilities and even tested him on some future programs which he apparently did quite well on (even though he's never been taught some of these things). He has successfully mastered, within a month, the basic prepositions (up, under, over, etc.) which I heard S. saying can take some children up to a year to comprehend. Everywhere we go Luke is pointing to this and telling me what colour they are (and signing the colour still at the same time): yellow, blue, white, brown, black, orange. He's recognized even more letters (spontaneously) and said the colour of the letter as well (ie there was an "Orange S" on Sesame Street the other day). Luke's "scribbling" is better, with the hope and goal of starting to teach him to print his letters in the fall (how exciting). Next they will begin the "what does the ______ say?" and teach him animal noises. Should be fun. He also doesn't seem to "get" puzzles, but he's not frustrated by them either; apparently he gets quite distracted by "Pablo" in the puzzle (of the Backyardigans). A bit of a thing for Pablo I guess — who wouldn't, such a cute little blue bird?

Before daddy went to work Wednesday morning he asked for a hug from his boys. Luke leaned in and said "Kiss" and kissed him, then said "Hug" (all spontaneously) and stepped in for a real hug with arms tight around daddy's neck (Luke would never put his arms around our neck... he's always had big issues with his arms having low muscle tone and never holding onto us especially as a little baby-toddler). It made daddy's day.

Joel was crying inconsolably yesterday morning (going to be 2 in a month, ayiyiyiyi). Luke looked at me, signed "Please" and pointed to Joel.... his way of saying "Make Joel stop being so sad". It was quite adorable. Luke often signs "please" now when he wants something. Great manners!

April 28
Had a wonderful weekend with family and Luke impressed a lot of people with his talking. He even said people's names which they've been waiting to hear for so long. He was very well-behaved, and I was especially proud of him and Joel at the outdoor lunch on Sunday. It was nice to go to a family function and not have to worry so much about them... they are more and more independent and just walked and ran around and sat on lots of laps and ate fruit and chicken and cucumber (I didn't have to bring their "special" meal!). They were pretty quiet and entertaining, and it was once again, just nice to feel like a "typical family" for a couple hours.

At home, Luke is doing more "belly flops" onto the bed and couch, getting more and more rough (a nice "typical" rough). He has his Uncle P.'s personality: he pesters Joel ceaselessly. Actually to the point where I heard Joel say to Luke the other day "No bugging". Hahaha. I must say "Luke stop bugging Joel" quite often!

Our Speech Therapist was very pleased with Luke's long list of spontaneous words, which Ms. S. sent to her via email. Here they are: cow, more, go, apple, down, pablo, cracker, bum, cookie, up, no, nemo, mom, dad, green, hat, star, car, paper, book, monster, boat, brush, teeth, bird, bottle, tree, pink, ear, band aid, bike, dog, slinky, ball, baby, door, play doh, airplane, bowl, pen, glasses, dora, tyrone, sit, all done, bounce, binder, queen, toes, blue, pee, purple, yellow, dinosaur, bunny, toothpaste, toast, light. She recommended that we "one-up" Luke by saying an extra word when he says one word. For example: when he says "hat", we say "green hat". He's been doing a lot of two-word combinations which is exciting. The next step they're/we're teaching him is verbs, so he can produce sentences. So if Luke says "airplane" we say "flying", etc. He's also been learning his numbers at preschool which is very exciting for them. He knows 1-5 already. We had parent observation day and Luke was a little overwhelmed by the "change" in the room with all the parents there, but he slowly got back into his groove. He sat very well in circle time and you could see that he was trying hard to participate in the songs. He did the bird and fish signs for the final song since he's very familiar with those words. I keep saying if he changes as much in the next year as he did in the last year, it will be nothing short of amazing.

Next week (May 4,5,6) we have all kinds of appointments in Vancouver (naturopath, EEG, BioChemical Diseases at Children's Hospital), so it should be interesting what comes of that.

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